3:27 am

Tue June 4, 2013

High-Tech Sensors Help Old Port City Leap Into Smart Future

The Spanish city of Santander is using a network of sensors to help improve services and save money. Incidents reported to Santander's command-and-control center, where the city manages data from sensors and smartphone reports made by citizens, are plotted on a map of the city.

Engineers are preparing to equip all dumpsters in Santander with sensors that gauge whether the container is full or empty. The sensors then transmit data to garbage collectors, alerting them to which containers need to be emptied.

Aside from the occasional ferry down from England, the old Spanish port city of Santander doesn't get too many foreign visitors. So imagine the locals' surprise when delegations from Google, Microsoft and the Japanese government all landed there recently, to literally walk the streets.

What they've been flocking to see is mostly invisible: 12,000 sensors buried under the asphalt, affixed to street lamps and atop city buses. The sensors measure everything from air pollution to where there are free parking spaces. They can even tell garbage collectors which dumpsters are full, and automatically dim street lights when no one is around.

"Antennas are gathering the information coming from the sensors under the ground, and send it to the command-and-control center," explains Luis Muñoz, an IT professor at the University of Cantabria, who took NPR on a recent tour of Santander, pointing out sensors and the infrastructure they use to transmit data.

Three years ago, Muñoz won an $11 million grant from the European Commission to pay for the sensors. With about 180,000 residents, Santander is small enough to be saturated with the devices, so Europe is testing them there before expanding into bigger cities. The municipality saves money, and researchers like Muñoz get to show off their gadgets for future clients.

Those gadgets include street signs equipped with digital panels that display real-time parking information for every block. In addition to sending data to Santander's command-and-control center, the sensors also send it to a suite of applications on citizens' smartphones.

And in this electronic democracy, citizens can contribute, too — by uploading a photo of a pothole or broken streetlight, for example, and sending it directly to city hall. There's an app for that.

"You send us a photograph, and we try to solve that incident in about five or six days," says Iñigo de la Serna, mayor of Santander. "It took like three weeks to solve that project before having the applications."

De la Serna rattles off a list of big global corporations his once-sleepy city is now doing business with: NEC from Japan, IBM and Banco Santander, among others. The IBM deal is for the Santander City Brain — a smartphone and tablet app on which the mayor trades ideas about city planning with his constituents.

"People have already sent us about 400 different ideas — very, very interesting," de la Serna says. "So the citizen is like sitting with us, telling [us], 'I want to work to make this city better. I don't want only to complain.' "

Spanish streets erupt often in angry protests over the economy, but Santander appears to buck that trend. People are using their smartphones to make their city better. The city saves money — about 25 percent on electricity bills and 20 percent on garbage — and utility companies pick up the tab for the sensors' upkeep, because they save money by using them.

On one of Santander's main pedestrian thoroughfares, a 75-year-old family business called Benito's Shoes has a Smart Santander sticker in the display window. The owner, Angel Benito, says he has received shoe orders from passersby, even when his shop is closed.

"This is an old city. We are old shops, but we are on it. We are on the latest technologies." Benito says. "We have to do it. Because when you are in crisis, you have to ... just do it!"

Over in Santander's command-and-control center, technicians oversee a huge digital map, overlaid with coordinates for every smartphone using the Santander suite of apps.

"We don't register the users. What we know is a user is using this application," says IT researcher Veronica Gutierrez, who works with Muñoz, the University of Cantabria professor. "But it's the same as people do with websites."

Still, some privacy advocates could be worried about Big Brother. NPR decided to run all this by Emilio Martinez, the webmaster at Santander's biggest newspaper, El Diario Montañés. Martinez, 34, is a self-professed "techie" who's not on Facebook because of privacy concerns. But he doesn't have a problem sharing data with his neighbors on the Smart Santander apps. That's what cities are all about, he says.

"In Santander, everyone knows everyone. I think that behind Facebook, [there's] a commercial purpose," Martinez says. But he says the Smart Santander system is different. "I think if you offer something useful to the citizens, this is the best you can do."

Bankrupt Spain may actually be fertile ground for Smart Cities like this. Local municipalities are keen to cut costs while maintaining services for citizens. And while Spaniards' average income is less than half that of Americans, they actually have about one-third more smartphones.

The mayor of Santander is now the president of the Smart Cities Network in Spain. His next project? Wireless water and electricity meters for homes and businesses.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This morning, we join the NPR Cities Project.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Develop it into a world-class city.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN MOVING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: If other cities can do it, we can do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: This whole beauty is based on technology and integration.

WERTHEIMER: The Cities Project covers urban life in the 21st century, and our current series is all about cities and technology. Today, we head to an old port on the Atlantic coast of Spain.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER FALLING)

WERTHEIMER: This is a small city called Santander. It's emerging as a prototype smart city blanketed with sensors that measure everything from air pollution to available parking spaces. And as Lauren Frayer discovered, Santander is attracting delegations from the likes of Google and Microsoft, seeking a vision for future cities that they can spread around the globe.

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: What they've been coming here to see, though, is mostly invisible: 12,000 sensors buried under the asphalt I'm standing on, affixed to lamp post across the street and many others and atop city buses.

LUIS MUNOZ: You see here, the two antennas, you see, just behind the tree? So, those antennas are gathering information coming from the sensors.

FRAYER: Under the ground there.

MUNOZ: Under the ground and send towards the command and control center.

FRAYER: It looks like a little wireless router.

MUNOZ: Exactly.

FRAYER: This is Europe's prime laboratory for what a smart city can be, and it started with this man's research.

MUNOZ: Hello. I am Luis Munoz. I am professor at the University of Cantabria.

FRAYER: Professor Munoz has saturated Santander with these sensors paid for by an $11 million grant from the European Commission. The sensors can tell which dumpsters need emptying, which lawns need watering and even dim city streetlights when no one's around. The city saves money on utilities and researchers get to demo their gadgets for future clients.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR OPENING AND SIREN)

FRAYER: We're driving through downtown Santander and Munoz is pointing out street signs that display the number of available parking places on every block.

MUNOZ: At the top, you have the number of free places in the whole area: 13. And at the bottom you see the number of free places just in this street.

FRAYER: On that street. So, there's one place left.

MUNOZ: One place left.

FRAYER: The sensors send data to a command and control center, and also to a suite of applications on citizens' smartphones. And in this electronic democracy, citizens can contribute, too, by uploading a photo of a pothole or a broken streetlight directly here to City Hall.

INIGO DE LA SERNA: You send us a photograph, we try to solve that incident in about five or six days. This is the Santander city brain.

FRAYER: Ah. Mayor Inigo de la Serna pulls out his iPad to demonstrate the Santander city brain, an app in which he's been trading hundreds of ideas with citizens.

DE LA SERNA: So, the citizen is like sitting with us, telling I want to work to make this city better.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHATTER)

FRAYER: I'm walking down Calle Juan de Herrera. And on my right there's Edificio Banco Santander. That's the headquarters of the eurozone's largest bank. And as I head down this street, I'm going to pop in and ask some shopkeepers what they think of the Smart Santander system. (Foreign language spoken)

A. BENITO: This is an old city. We are old shops, but we are on it. We are on the latest technologies.

FRAYER: Data from people's shopping habits to their parking spots is tracked back in Santander's command and control center. That's where I asked the technicians about privacy. Could you see me?

VERONICA GUTIERREZ: No, no, no, no. We don't register the users. What we know is a user is using this application. But it's the same as people do with websites.

FRAYER: Veronica Gutierrez mans a digital map overlaid with coordinates for every smartphone using the Santander apps.

GUTIERREZ: Sometimes you get surprised when people is using this.

FRAYER: Well, I think my editor in Washington, D.C. downloaded it.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTIERREZ: Yes, yes. We can see. We can see here.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)

FRAYER: I hop a bus over the Santander's biggest newspaper to run all this by its webmaster. Emilio Martinez is a skeptical techie who's not on Facebook. He thinks that's like Big Brother. Yet he doesn't have a problem sharing data with his neighbors on the Smart Santander apps. He says that's what cities are all about.

EMILIO MARTINEZ: In Santander, everyone knows everyone. If you offer something useful to the citizens, this is the best you can do for our citizens.

FRAYER: Locals here seem OK with being watched just a bit, especially if it makes their lives easier, gives them a voice in government and makes their city famous for something other than the founding of a bank 150 years ago. It could even create jobs, something Spain badly needs. And helped me navigate my bus route home.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)

FRAYER: In Spain, I'm Lauren Frayer for the NPR Cities Project.

WERTHEIMER: You can follow the NPR Cities Project on Twitter: @NPRCities and find other cities at npr.org./nprcities. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.